The 300 Mile Man

Dean Karnazes wants to run farther than any ultrarunner ever has But can his body (to say nothing of his mind) get him there

Karnazes has two attempts at 300 miles to look back on-and learn from. For instance, he credits going from 225 miles to 262 (with that nap) in October on having run the first 100 miles slower-24 hours versus 21 hours. And for his next attempt (still unscheduled), he's thinking about trying a course less hilly than the one the Calistoga relay traverses. "I don't want to turn this into running-around-a-track-until-I-fall-down," says Karnazes, "but I have to be realistic." Then again, if he doesn't run the 300 as part of a race, he'll "miss out on the energy from other runners. It's hard to say how that might affect me."

Already, the effects aren't pretty. During his last 300 attempt, on his last night, Karnazes started suffering hallucinations, at one point thinking the headlights of on-coming cars were snake eyes. "It was more mental than any race I'd done before," he says, "because the distance was just so daunting." And yet, for however gruesome running 262 miles may have been, he stepped away knowing how close he had come to his goal. "More than anything, that run was good for my head. I know I ran 262 miles and walked away from it."

Not just walked away from it. The next day, after waking at 5 a.m. to get his kids off to school, Dean Karnazes went out for a run.